Those who pass through the mystical water in Baptism must put to death in the water the whole phalanx of evil–such as covetousness, unbridled desire, rapacious thinking, the passion of conceit and arrogance, wild impulse, wrath, anger, malice, envy, and all such things. Since the passions naturally pursue our nature, we must put to death in the water both the base movements of the mind and the acts which issue from them.
He who would approach the knowledge of things sublime must first purify his manner of life from all sensual and irrational emotion. He must wash from his understanding every opinion derived from his customary intercourse with his own companion, that is, with his sense perceptions, which are, as it were, wedded to our nature as its companion.
St. Gregory of Nyssa
